The Snow Too Peaceful
by halfcurehalfdisease
Summary: Silver and Lyra celebrate their first Christmas together. Though it's one of Silver's first happy Christmases, thoughts about his broken family linger in the back of his mind, and they aren't quick to clear, particularly when his father drops a particularly heavy secret onto his son's shoulders the day after... Spinoff/mini-sequel to It's Been A While. Contains Soulsilvershipping.
1. A Happy Christmas

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon or its characters. But if I did, I'd remind everyone to play the originals before playing the sequels *glares at a close friend for buying Black2 without playing Pokemon Black*.

Anyway, perfect and *shameless* segue into saying that if you didn't read IBAW, you might be really confused about some references made here to events that happened in a completely different story.

Also I apologize in advance if the spacing looks funky in this. I did the copy-n-paste method so I could better mess with formatting and it's been less than agreeable.

* * *

Serious thoughts about the identity of his mother all started for Silver when he went over to Lyra's house for Christmas, around ten months after they had decided to start dating. In his now-eighteen years of life, he'd spent ten unhappy Christmases with his father, four completely alone (three of those directly after the incident in Lavender Town), and three others getting harangued by the young, vagabond incarnations of Lyra, Kris, and Ethan. This was the first Christmas he had in his life where he was invited and included in an emotionally sound way for him, and it was a moment that made him a little nervous.

However, from the moment he entered Lyra's home and was assailed with affection by his girlfriend and generally good-natured teasing by her mother and other relatives of hers, Silver felt like this Christmas would be the best one he ever had.

It made him feel kind of special, the way Lyra introduced him to all of her relatives with a pleasant, proud smile on her face and her hand linked warmly through his. Her grandmother Ai, who looked incredibly out-of-place as the only full-blooded Johtonese woman in the house, her aunt Rina, who had the looks of a Unovan movie star, her uncle Ryou, the stony-faced younger brother of her mother and aunt that Silver hadn't even known existed up until this point, and all of their children and spouses…Silver's head reeled with their names. However, it brought questions to his mind as they chatted and ate the mind-bogglingly tasty cooking Lyra, her mother, and Rina had spent hours on.

Lyra had family. Maybe it was only her mother's family that she could really rely on and spend time with, but she knew both of her parents and both sides of her family. In contrast, Silver only had his father. When his grandmother, Evelina "Madame" Briccone formed Team Rocket all of those years ago, she brought her younger son, Giovanni, under her spell of influence, and her older son, Lauro, was driven away by her madness. Silver only knew that Lauro had married and they had kids, but he didn't even know the names of genders of his cousins the way Lyra did.

Nor did he even know who his mother was. Giovanni never spoke of her, and treated Silver terribly if he even brought her up. He didn't know if his parents had ever been married, or if he'd simply been the product of some affair. He didn't even know if his mother was alive or not, though he assumed she wasn't.

In short, he had questions that needed some answers.

Silver found himself shaken roughly from his contemplative state as Lyra sat down next to him at the table, pressing a kiss to his cheek as she did. "Come on. Eat up. It'll get cold and Obaa-chan will start talking about how she never wasted food as a child."

"Because we didn't, you little whelp!" she barked, making Silver, who was about to taste a Kantonese potato salad, bite his lip to keep from laughing wryly. She was a fiery little thing—he could see where Lyra got her innate sense of fearlessness from.

Lyra smiled at her grandma. "Please try the rice. I made your old recipe and added some red onion to it."

Ai took a bite and nodded approvingly moments later. Though she seemed harsh, Silver had come to learn when he first met her (in a rather unfortunate and preferably unmentionable incident in early fall, involving rice balls, two feet of yarn, and his Weavile) that she was just a spunky older woman tired of referring to everyone with the complex set of honorifics she'd grown up with.

The oddness of her family, the warmth, the little specifics he observed eating dinner with them…it almost frustrated him. _Where the hell do I come from? _Silver thought to himself, staring at a pea pod balanced on the end of his fork with some trepidation. _Who is my mother? Why did she leave me? Are there other people out there aside from Lyra and her dorky-ass friends who celebrate my birthday?_

Lyra brushed her hand soothingly over his outer thigh. "Quit frowning," she whispered. "It's Christmas. It's illegal to frown on Christmas."

"I'll reserve that for New Year's Day, then," he retorted, making her chuckle.

He'd already almost forgotten about his train of thought when Ai looked at him, her eyes flinty and dark. "You, Ginger!" she barked at him. She refused to call him Silver when there "wasn't an inch of silver to be seen on his person." It was one of the rare cases where Silver understood the logic of one of his many nicknames. When she had his attention, she continued, "Why aren't you with your family today?"

Lyra was about to respond to Ai, to tell her that Silver's past was off-limits to people he barely knew, but Silver answered, "Think about my last name for a second. Briccone. What does it mean to you?"

Most of the people sitting at the table, including Kris's family and Chiyo, knew of his past and had taken it into stride. Lyra had warned them long before this Christmas dinner, afraid of possible aggression from the other Trainers. However, the moment that the realization lit up on Ai's face, Silver knew she was going to have a less pleasant reaction. "You're that _slime-ball's _son?" she asked incredulously. Hadn't she been informed of his past? Silver thought she was going to snip at him about it or shame Lyra for dating a known crime lord's son, but she let loose a bark of laughter. "Tell me where that red hair comes from, then! The man is a damned Kantonese mobster and somehow he has a redheaded child."

Lyra sighed noticeably with relief next to him. She clearly had been afraid that a fight would start over Silver's less-than-stellar parentage. Underneath the table, Silver took hold of her fingers gently, soothing her remaining tension. "No clue. Maybe my mother, but…yeah. Never met her," he responded carefully.

"You don't know your mother? You never told me that!" Chiyo grumbled to herself, resembling a very pouty Lyra with her current expression.

Lyra chuckled under her breath. "It's a bit of a sore point for discussion, you know," she said, attempting to curb the discussion. "Besides, he has us for Christmas, and let's try not to scare him away this early on."

"If he survives a Christmas with us, he'll probably marry you and get stuck with this batty family for life," Kris's snotty younger sister, Eliza, interjected.

Lyra noticeably blushed, but Silver wasn't really paying attention anymore. This was a constant running joke with Lyra's family: "If they survive the first Christmas with the family together, the couple tended to stay together." So far, the only exception to the rule had been Chiyo's marriage, but that seemed to be a point everyone brushed under the rug. Because of the way this conversation continuously played out, he let himself think. Maybe Giovanni, now imprisoned on a prison island in Kanto, would have some answers if Silver could bring himself to go visit him in prison. If anything, he at least wanted to know his mother's name and if she was alive or not.

The rest of the day seemed to pass in a whirlwind—aside from the ten minutes they crammed themselves into the living room to open presents. In the cramped living room, everyone opened gifts from each other, tearing through wrapping paper and ribbons like vengeful Scyther. Silver gave Lyra a set of golden bangles shaped like various serpentine Pokémon, like Rayquaza, Milotic, and Arbok, and more privately later on he had a few other things to give her. Also, after some prodding and heavy hinting from Lyra, he brought Chiyo a box filled with Kantonese chocolate truffles.

Much to his surprise, Chiyo and Ai (Lyra, too, but he'd expected that) had both gotten him gifts—he hadn't really expected anything from Lyra's family. Chiyo's gift was a dozen Apricorn Balls made by Kurt in Azalea Town. Ranging from Heavy Balls to Love Balls, Silver felt that he'd be able to easily catch the next Pokémon he came across.

Ai, on the other hand, was a little less practical. "It's a yukata, you uncouth boy," she snipped when he opened the box to discover a rather fancy black, gray and indigo garment.

"…how much did this cost?" he asked in a tiny voice. He'd been dating Lyra for ten months, yes, but so far the family had barely shown anything but mild interest when it came to him! Where the hell was a yukata coming from?

"I made it myself! It was meant for that boy Ethan, but he broke up with my granddaughter again. So I made some adjustments and now it's yours. It's a shame. I liked that boy," Ai said, looking mildly wistful.

Kris scoffed from across the room. Her second break-up with Ethan was still a sore point for her; that night at Lyra's seventeenth birthday party had been the only happy night upon rekindling the relationship they'd had as younger teenagers. "Obaa-chan, I'm pretty sure I have more testosterone in my left pinkie than he does in his whole body!"

"He was a nice boy!" Ai retorted, and, with reverence, admitted, "In my youth, I would've loved to have legs like his."

Between the fact that he now owned a yukata meant for Ethan and Ai's commentary on the rather feminine boy possessing lovely legs, Silver felt mildly disturbed. _This family is on crack, I swear, _he thought to himself, resisting the urge to slam his forehead against a wall. He almost wondered if he preferred Giovanni's lifeless parenting style.

Lyra pressed a small package into his hands. "Hey, you, open this and stop listening to Obaa-chan and Kris. They can go on like this for hours."

He sighed and opened the present. Inside was a Luxury Ball, but it was apparent to Silver that this was not an empty one. "Did I mention that Mellow and my Arcanine are pretty friendly?" she asked him.

It took him a moment to realize what Lyra was saying. "You bred me an _Absol?_"

"He's not just an Absol. He's a _Shiny _Absol," she responded with a sly grin. Silver gaped at her. Yesterday, she'd given him a new jacket and boots for his birthday—she even took him out to his favorite restaurant for dinner the weekend before Christmas. Now she was giving him, of all things, a shiny Absol?! Lyra chuckled at his expression and reached out to ruffle his hair affectionately. "I don't need another Absol! Mellow is enough of a handful, let me tell you that! This little guy's pretty sweet, though, considering who his parents are."

A swell of heat filled his stomach. "You're coming home with me tonight," he responded fiercely. "I owe you one."

Lyra's eyes widened a little, but she shot him a sly grin. "You make 'coming home' sound so dirty," Lyra retorted, poking his chest. "But I can do that."

Later that night, when everyone had left and Lyra had helped Chiyo clean up after the get-together, she got the okay to leave with Silver. "Don't get up to anything," Chiyo warned them, "like cocaine."

Laughing, Lyra wrapped up in a bulky pink scarf and a brown pea coat before kissing her mom on the cheek. She retorted, "Don't you eat all of your chocolate in one sitting. You act hung over when you do that."

"Aren't I _your _mother?" Chiyo said, ruffling her daughter's hair good-naturedly. "Go have some fun. And Silver!" The redhead froze when she called his name. She'd already had a very awkward one-sided conversation with him about how it was okay if he and Lyra were to have a sexual relationship—but that there'd better be no accidental grandchildren for Chiyo, as she looked "too young yet to be a grandmother". Of course, this conversation had been on the day that Chiyo decided that she and Silver should go shopping together for Lyra's birthday in the Goldenrod Department store, but it had been in an elevator that suddenly "decided to be out-of-service", to use Chiyo's words. There had been no way to flee. However, presently, when Lyra's mother gazed at him, she merely said with a grin, "Keep my kid out of trouble."

He nodded, much to Lyra's very verbal dismay and irritation. "Sure thing," he retorted, patting Lyra's head condescendingly.

Once the pair had left the house and started to trudge through calf-deep snow toward the little inlet of sea at the edge of town, Silver wrapped an arm around Lyra's waist, tugging her as close as he could while they were walking. "I can't wait to see this Absol," he admitted to her. He thought he sounded as excited as Ethan around a hoard of Azurill, which wasn't something he'd ever hoped to describe himself as.

Lyra smiled, breath gusting frostily in the dark. "He's a cutie. He just hatched about three days ago. Mellow had no idea what to do with him—she's never had a child, let alone wanted one. It's sad, but he's really sweet right now and about the size of a Growlithe. Before that, I was just going to give you the coat and boots for Christmas and keep the dinner as your birthday one." She gazed up at Silver, eyebrows raised. "You could really train this little guy to be whatever you want him to be."

Silver was absolutely thrilled by the prospect of a blank slate of an Absol with abnormal coloration. "Once we get to my place, I'm going to check him out. See what I'm up against. What color is a Shiny Absol, anyway?"

"Pure white with a red face instead of off-white with a dark blue face."

"Damn. He and I will be all matchy-matchy."

"Wasn't that the reason I traded my red Gyarados for that Skarmory you caught on accident?"

"It wasn't an accident…it was just very…well…fateful…"

"For whatever reason, you just threw that Ultra Ball in the air, hit a wild Skarmory and screamed like a little girl when it fell back on the ground again with a captured Pokémon inside of it."

"Don't you think I was pretty f***ing shocked?"

"I think Skarmory was a little more shocked than you, honestly."

The two continued their playful banter until they reached the inlet. Though frigid, the waves lapped greedily at the shore, hushed and thrumming in the evening atmosphere. Without as much as a verbal cue, Silver released his Crobat, and Lyra released said Skarmory that Silver had caught on accident. The large, silvery Pokémon eyed Silver with some distaste—she'd never quite forgiven the redheaded human for that incident outside of Blackthorn City. Sighing loudly, he glanced at Lyra. "Why Skarmory?" he asked irritably.

"I've been doing some speed training with a few of my newer Pokémon right now," Lyra retorted, "and she's one of them. Now, let's get going. We have important things to do," she added with a one-sided smile. She hopped onto Skarmory's back and let her take off.

Silver sighed. He needed to work with her on making better innuendos. Forget this speed-training crap. Patting Crobat's head with some well-contained affection, he got on his back and flew off after Lyra and the Skarmory.

* * *

After the two had started dating ten months ago, Silver, a boy who'd always been comfortable on the move and without a home, had finally decided it was time to at least get an apartment or something in a city within close flying distance of Lyra's, even if neither Trainer spent any time at home. He'd spent around half of his life constantly on the move without a home base, and suddenly it struck him that it'd be a wise plan to have one. It took him two months to find and buy the small, low-cost house in Pewter City, not far from the museum. Lyra had always said affectionately that it "had charm", but Silver knew it was pretty rustic-looking, much to his dismay. Modern, clean-cut lines and asymmetry had always appealed to him more than this rather picturesque little structure.

However, it was a house. It was a house in which he could stomp around wearing shoes if he wanted and stay up until 3 am watching Unovan baseball if he so felt like it—or bring his girlfriend over for some privacy, so to speak.

He flicked on the lights and immediately punched the thermostat into life on the way into the house. "Well…it's been a week since I've been here, no thanks to you," Silver said to Lyra, poking her in the arm.

"Oh hush," she said, not bothering to return her Skarmory right away. The Pokémon gazed at Silver with hard yellow eyes, and he wondered if she was deciding whether or not to eat him. Lyra then suddenly realized that she was standing in Silver's living room with a large and aggressive Pokémon with feathers that had been used as knife blades in the past. "Whoops. Sorry, Skarmory. You're a little dangerous for a small house." Not particularly offended by Lyra's observation, she allowed herself to be returned without a struggle.

Silver dug into his pocket, intending to grab the Luxury Ball holding Mellow's son, but suddenly he saw Lyra fixing a stray hair and frowning as it refused to stay off of her forehead. She patted it down and out of the way with both hands, and suddenly Silver's head was just filled with her. Over the summer, he'd had an odd conversation with Falkner, of all people, about the different types of attractiveness that girls had. "Sometimes, there are the ones that you can't look even look at and breathe at the same time, for they are simply that attractive and they know it. Essentially, they play you with it. There are the ones who are just as attractive and don't quite know it, and the things they do will drive you crazy in a different way…and there are ones who are cute and nonsexual, but the things they do manage to make your heart and your emotions become as twisted and inflamed," he'd said, and Silver understood. Depending on her mood, Lyra could be any of those three. The night of her party…she was definitely the first option. There'd been no denying how incredibly _sexy _she'd been—yet this wasn't normal for her. Lyra was most often undeniably adorable, and more often than not it made him unable to think and made him merely want to take some sort of action.

She noticed him watching, blushed profusely, and turned away to fix her hair. "Quit staring at me, you," she mumbled, hiding her face in her scarf.

Silver looked away and resisted the urge to just sweep her off her feet and carry her off to his bedroom—they'd agreed they were both too young for _that _sort of relationship, regardless of how many bad innuendos they made with one another. But it didn't mean the urge wasn't there. "Fine," he muttered.

Lyra began to unwind her scarf. "You should bring out Absol," she said. "He's probably itching for some attention."

_Right. Absol. I'm a dumbass. _He reached into his coat pocket and drew out the Luxury Ball. Clicking the button, Silver watched as the young Shiny appeared on floor, far smaller than either of his parents.

"Sol?" he murmured, looking around in some confusion. Recognition filled his eyes at the sight of Lyra, who had removed her jacket and tossed it in the corner along with her scarf.

She smiled at him. "Hi, sweetie. Remember how I was telling you about Silver? He's going to be your Trainer now."

Absol looked at Silver with wide eyes. His eyes glinted pale blue, like snow on a cloudy day. "I don't bite," was all Silver could manage to say. Unlike Lyra, he didn't have a natural sense of comforting or being friendly with unfamiliar Pokémon, especially naïve baby ones like this Absol.

Absol tottered over to him on oversized paws, seemingly won over by Silver's weak attempt at parental tenderness. "Ab, sol! Ab!" he cried in a soft, sweet voice, his eyes glimmering. Silver awkwardly crouched to greet him. Absol butted his face against his hand, already careful not to cut the human boy with his head blade. This open display of affection won Silver over in an overwhelming fashion—the Absol's actions were remarkably similar to Lyra. The little Pokémon was his. He rubbed both sides of Absol's face.

"He's pretty cute," Silver admitted, a bit grudgingly. This Absol would be the second thing he had ever called cute, with Lyra being the first. "He better grow into those paws."

"Of course he will," Lyra said in a low, mockingly tough sort of voice, crossing her arms. In her combination of an oversized ivory sweater and festive leggings, Silver wanted to add that she couldn't sound tough in that outfit.

Then, he suddenly remembered what Lyra had said about Mellow rejecting him. "Is he okay?" he suddenly asked. When Lyra gave him a curious look, he elaborated, "You know. Getting rejected by your own mom sounds like a walk in the park and all."

"He and his dad get along all right, and now he has you, so I think he's just fine," Lyra said, smiling. "It's pretty cute that you're worried."

"Shut up. I just have to make sure he's trainable and not some pansy," Silver growled as Absol wormed his way into his lap, knocking him flat onto his butt.

Snorting at the scene in front of her, Lyra headed into his living room. "Well, when you two are done being _so adorable _that I need to kick a wall in order to feel tough again, come join me on your sofa."

Some dirty thoughts crawled through Silver's head once again, but he shoved them down. _Not yet, asshole. Not. Yet. _Ruffling Absol's head ruff, he set him off his lap and said, "You heard her. Living room. Let's go."

Just as he entered the tiny living room, he found Lyra lying on her stomach on his couch, channel surfing. The curve of her lower back and the clean shape of her legs could be seen particularly well at this angle, and Silver wondered if she meant to do that (knowing that those were two assets of hers that he couldn't resist all that well) or if she'd simply gotten a little sloppy with her self-control this late on a holiday night. Regardless, this jarred him enough that he stood stock-still in the doorway to his living room.

Lyra glanced over her shoulder at Silver and turned over onto her back to look at him better. "I see you haven't returned him to his Luxury Ball yet," she said, leaving the channel on_ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Stantler. _"Unusual for Mr. I-Like-To-Keep-My-Pokémon-In-Pokeballs."

"If you haven't noticed, he's pretty damned small yet, unlike my original team. It's not like he could break my house," Silver muttered—which reminded him. He either had to deposit Absol or one of his other Pokémon in the PC system by 11:59 at night on the twenty-sixth of December or get fined by the League for carrying too many Pokémon.

Lyra merely smiled that knowing little grin of hers. On the TV screen, Rudolph was moping about how no one else accepted his red nose. Typical. "Remember the year you made me watch this with you and Ethan?" Silver asked.

"Kris was there, too."

"Passed out drunk from mislabeled eggnog doesn't count as there, Lyra."

Lyra chuckled and crossed her legs. "How old were we all? Eleven? Twelve?"

"Too old for that shit," he muttered. With a sigh, he noticed that Absol watched the stop-motion characters with awe scrawled all over his young features. "Now you're getting Absol into it. Turn the damned thing off."

"He likes it," Lyra said defensively, watching as Absol settled into a neat little ball on the carpet, watching Rudolph on screen with wide eyes.

Ignoring her comment, Silver asked, "Are you going to make any room for me on that couch? Or am I going to sit on the floor like Absol and lose brain cells on this movie?"

"Oh. Whoops. Sorry," she muttered, folding her legs to her stomach and sitting up. "That was really inconsiderate of me."

Unable to take another moment of Rudolph's stuffy little voice, Silver decided on a better idea. If Absol was so transfixed on the movie, he could leave it on and attempt to do something else with Lyra, right? For instance, he still had to give her his present. He walked over to the couch and scooped her up instead, earning a yelp of shock from his girlfriend. "Change of heart. I'm giving you your present," he said flatly.

"Is it really necessary to carry me in order to get said present?" Lyra asked as he headed toward the kitchen.

"Yes. Definitely." Once he got into the kitchen, he flicked on the lights. Like every other room in the house, the kitchen was cramped, and the cabinets were in a state of disrepair that Silver only half-heartedly intended to fix. He set her down on the counter. "The counters might've been too high for you to get on without my help."

"You are a giant, stupid dork," Lyra muttered, seething about yet another short joke.

Silver couldn't help but laugh a little at this. A long time ago, back in the days where she always wore the stupid marshmallow hat and thigh-high socks, she might've attempted to punch him in the arm a few times before moving on. "You're not going to be saying that in a minute," he said.

Lyra sighed, crossing her legs and her arms. "Don't get too cocky."

Silver slid over to the opposite counter, opening a drawer there. In this drawer, there was a rather unassuming brown package was his gift for Lyra. "Yeah…how about you do that really lame girly thing where you close your eyes and I give it to you?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder at her.

"That sounds like it's all sorts of wrong." Then she chuckled, planting her arms on the counter and closing her eyes. "Sure. Let's do it."

_Dear Arceus, I've ruined her mind, _Silver thought, grinding his palm into his forehead. Taking the pair of gifts out of the packaging, he walked over to Lyra. The first was fairly superficial and something of a no-brainer—he found a Dawn Stone, and he figured she had more use for it than he did. It was one of the few stones she had thus far been unable to find in the Johto. The second gift, though, was a necklace.

Yeah, whatever, it was sappy, he knew that. He wasn't thoughtful like Lyra. He couldn't pinpoint a need like she could and take care of it via presents. The practicality of her gifts…he didn't know how to do that. A few weeks ago, he'd visited the Ruins of Alph. It was a quiet place, perfect for thinking, and aside from the shy Unown in the lower chambers and the generally antisocial archaeologists that worked there, it was perfect for Silver's thought breeding.

Suddenly, he felt himself back in that moment as clearly and suddenly as if someone had teleported him there.

That day, one of the archaeologists had bothered him as he entered the site, telling him about a legend that the lowest chambers of the ruins contained a chamber where any question could be answered by the Unown. "If you're curious about anything…they can spell out the answer," he told Silver, clutching his coat about him to ward off the cold.

Seeing as it was December, it was the one month out of the year he gave his mother any thought—and that was because some redheaded woman out there gave life to her child on that day.

So obviously he had to try it.

With a little help from Crobat, he managed to navigate his way down to one of the lowest chambers—places the general public didn't dare venture. The Unown startled a lot of people as they flitted back and forth between walls, trying not to be seen by humans. Silver didn't mind. He'd seen worse things in the past year than some shy Pokémon whose only known move was Hidden Power.

He reached the lower chamber, where the dead end was apparently. Unlike the other chambers, the walls, the ceiling, and the floors were covered in the glyphs that the Unown took as safe havens. "Nice place," he'd commented.

Then, he asked the question. "Who is my mother?"

At first, nothing happened. Crobat hung from his shoulders, peering over one with curiosity at the immobile room.

Then, suddenly, three of the little creatures flitted out from their place on the wall and arranged themselves into a line. Silver gave a bark of laughter when he noticed they were all question marks, as if to say "I don't know" or "I'm confused" in terrible text lingo.

"Very funny. My name's Silver Briccone. Can you do something worthwhile now?" Silver asked, scratching at his jaw. Maybe the stupid things were just mocking him. It would be appropriate—it seemed like anything that lived and breathed enjoyed making a mockery of the redhead.

Without warning, a massive deluge of the Unown peeled from the walls, as if to laugh at Silver for being a nonbeliever in their abilities. The three question mark-shaped ones hung in the air as the various other ones began to form a loosely-shaped sphere around Silver and Crobat, creating a low, eerie hum that hurt Silver's ears.

A strange, gray-blue portal ripped open above him. "Fantastic," he muttered, wondering if he'd angered them into dragging him and Crobat into another dimension. Silver had more than enough fun with alternate dimensions back in February, when Lyra had almost gotten killed, and he wasn't exactly raring to encounter yet another one.

However, the Unown suddenly converged into a tight circle around it, and suddenly something glittering and golden dropped from the portal. As quickly as they came together, they pulled apart, leaving Silver alone with Crobat.

"…well…what the hell," he mumbled. Crobat garbled in agreement. Crouching, he examined the thing that had fallen from the portal. However, it wasn't just a _thing, _it was a necklace. It was a long, elegant gold chain tipped in a serpentine pendant that coiled around the chain. The shape reminded him of Rayquaza or a Milotic, though he wasn't sure that it was based off of either Pokémon.

Glancing around, he let out a growl. "How is this supposed to help me?" he asked. "What does this mean?"

The Unown spoke no reply.

Regardless, he took the chain with him and left the area. It seemed like a mockery; they didn't know, so they'd decided to throw pretty trinkets at him so that he'd leave them in peace. Or, if it wasn't a mockery, he decided that he wasn't sure what it meant, but if he couldn't figure it out, Lyra would certainly love it.

At present, this was the present he was giving Lyra. Slipping the Dawn Stone into one of her hands, he unclasped the necklace and hung it around her neck. He let his fingers linger near her neck for a moment, and he brought his hands up to cup her face and press a kiss on her lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened it. For a minute or so, there was only Lyra, and the faint taste of peppermint on her lips and the clean, sweet smell of summer she always seemed to carry. Then, she ducked her head so that his lips met her forehead, and she asked, "Can I open my eyes now?"

"Oh. Right." Silver peeled back. "Yeah. Open them."

Her gaze immediately fell to the Dawn Stone. "Perfect," she breathed. "I have a male Kirlia who doesn't exactly want to be a Gardevoir who'd love this."

Fingers roaming, she touched the pendant on the necklace. She lifted it to look at it, eyebrows raised approvingly. "Wow. This is really pretty. Vintage-looking, too. How much did it cost?" she suddenly accused, poking him in the chest. "It looks expensive. Don't spend money on me, you fool."

"I paid nothing at all, actually…except for some of my damned dignity." He explained the incident at the Ruins of Alph to her.

"So…you took their mockery of you and made it into a present for me." She gave a low whistle. "Cool story along with it, too. I love it. Thanks, Silver," Lyra said. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she gave him a tight hug. "Merry Christmas."

He returned the embrace. "Yeah. You too."

A few seconds later, Lyra said, "Silver…I was thinking about something." Pulling back from the embrace, she crossed her arms again. "In that story, you were talking about wanting to know your mom. And it just kind of brought up some old thoughts in my head. I was thinking and…maybe we should try to track her down," she said, brushing her hair out of her face.

Silver stared at her. "Track her down?" he asked blankly.

"As of yesterday, you've gone eighteen years without knowing your mom," Lyra said, a stubborn note coloring her voice. Sitting on this counter, she was face-to-face with Silver, and he could see the defiant spark within each hazel eyes. "That's not fair. We need you to know who your mom is, whether or not she's alive or dead or playing the accordion in some questionable tavern somewhere."

Silver tried not to think too deeply on the last clause in her sentence. Tugging at the knot he'd taken to wearing his hair in at the base of his neck, he slowly said, "The only person who would know anything is my father. I'd rather not talk to him about it."

"Well, he's in jail. What better things does he have to do?" Lyra asked.

"Rot in there?"

Lyra sighed and rested her head against the cabinets behind her, eyes closed in a terse manner. The dim lights cast a faint glimmer of russet through her hair, and Silver had to focus as to not be distracted by all the little things he found attractive about her. She quietly said, "What can he possibly do to you now? You've rejected the life he tried to force down your throat, and he's incarcerated." Opening her eyes slowly, she began to lean forward, resting her hand on Silver's forearm. "You're strong now. You're strong enough that, if not knowing your mom bothers you, you can do something about it."

Silver pulled away, but he did so in a gentle way. He knew that Lyra was going to be stubborn about it. Obstinate as a Tauros, she wasn't about to relent. It was best "If I go talk to him about it will you never bother me about it again?"

"Fair enough," Lyra said. Leaning forward, she kissed him on the forehead; it was only when she sat on the counter that she was able to do this. "Then let's do it tomorrow."

Silver groaned. He knew it was going to be a long, long night.

* * *

_A/N: Hey there. I'm back with my OTP! I liked the _It's Been A While _universe enough that I decided to do a little spinoff/sequel thing. I say it's both because it's post-events of my first story, but it doesn't really rely on them too heavily, either? And it's a completely different genre. No zombie-ish Pokemon here, obviously. It's a bit like a spinoff in that sense._

_Anyway, so this is a project that I'm working on along with my current work, _Sonata in Gray, _which is Sequelshipping. Since the chapters are longer with this one, the updates will take longer, but there won't be many. I don't plan on making this more than six or seven chapters, actually. _Sonata in Gray, _on the other hand... *chuckles ruefully*  
_

_By the way, I'm having some technical difficulty as of late, and if I don't update for a while, it's because my computer decided to take an unexpected and permanent vacation._

_Anyway, so I began writing this out in October earlier this year, and it's changed so much since then! At first, it was gonna be about Silver trying to figure out how to propose to Lyra (I thought that was a common subject, though), and then that it was gonna be about their married life (and I was too bored writing that). So it transformed into Silver doing this journey of self-discovery and I really hope you enjoy it! _

_Leave a review if you dare! I love hearing your thoughts and ideas. B  
_


	2. Possessive

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. But if I did, I'd fund a Pokemon/Digimon crossover just to piss off the self-righteous dudebros of the internet, but I'd never actually make it. /When did these dumb disclaimers of mine become so catty? :c/

* * *

Come morning, Lyra's eyes flickered open. Then, they closed again, and she gave a quiet sigh of contentment. Curled into the curve of her body was Absol. He snored quietly against her, his young face peaceful and free of adult worries. This tiny body warmed her front, whereas Silver slept with his body wrapped around hers—she supposed that the proper term for this was "spooning", but she always thought that the phrase held such negative connotations. One arm was wrapped tightly around her midriff with his palm resting just under her breasts, and the other one was situated under her neck.

It was comfortable like this. Considering that today, the day in which Silver was going to use the visiting hours at a prison on an island southeast of Cinnabar Island to interrogate his father, was going to be difficult, she might as well take the time now to cuddle.

Alas, Silver had other plans.

"I'm not dumb. I know you're awake," he said when Lyra tried to resort to the light, shallow breathing of deep sleep.

In a melodramatic ghostly voice, she crooned, "No I'm not. I'm still sleeping." Then, she made a show of snoring—but quietly, to avoid waking up Absol.

"I've been awake for half an hour. I know exactly when you woke up, idiot," Silver said, but not without affection. She felt his lips seek the back of her neck, sending hot shivers through her body. His knowledge of her weak points was humbling, especially knowing he could reduce her to an incoherent mess of blushes and garbled words quickly. "And didn't you fall asleep on the other side of the bed last night?"

Lyra sighed. Yes, she had. She'd fallen asleep on the extreme edge of Silver's full-sized bed, intending that to be a buffer against physical affection that, in baseball lingo, managed to stretch itself into a triple. "You're the sleep cuddler. Right before you fall asleep, if I'm anywhere near you, you have to grab me and start…spooning."

"Lyra, spooning is not a dirty word. Don't treat it like one."

"Oh hush," she said, tilting her head to gaze sleepily at him. Though her plans had been foiled, she was glad that they were talking like this. Silver had been on edge last night. Truly Lyra felt guilt over how nervous she'd made him by convincing him to talk to Giovanni about his mother's disappearance, but she felt that it was important for him to know who she was and whether or not he could track her down.

Silver gazed back at her. "You're thinking about something."

"I'm always thinking. Ethan's years of stupidity haven't rubbed off on me yet," Lyra said defensively, nudging him with her elbow.

He sighed, but Lyra knew that was to cover up a chuckle. "You're thinking about today like I'm thinking about today. I'm not a moron, you know."

Lyra sighed, drawing Absol closer to her. Quietly, she said, "I just want you to find your mom. That's all. I want you to be happy, and I'd like to thank her for bringing you into the world."

"You sap," Silver muttered, but Lyra knew he was blushing. His arms tightened around her, and he kissed the side of her neck. "Are you going to come with?"

"If you want me to."

"Dad's an asshole. Come at your own risk," Silver stated plainly. He suddenly released Lyra. "I'm going to get dressed and…see if I have anything that hasn't expired in my refrigerator," he added, sighing loudly.

"Yes, I get it. Sorry for keeping you out of your house for a week," Lyra said, sitting up. Absol was completely unbothered by her movement, dozing peacefully on his side. Sighing, she remembered that she came to Silver's house without a change of clothes. "Shoot. Do you have any of your old clothes around? I mean…" she gestured to her own.

"You mean stuff from when I was eleven?" Silver asked, clearly amused as he slid off the bed. "Because that's probably what would fit you."

Lyra gave a tight smile. It was too early for the short jokes. "Well, do you have them?"

"I have one of my old jackets in the closet that probably wouldn't make you look completely like a midget. I know for a fact you have leggings or pants lying around here somewhere from last time you stayed the night here."

Lyra smoothed her hair, grimacing when she noticed how greasy it was. Perhaps it was time for a shower. "Okay. I'm going to take a shower quick," she said. "And that's not a team sport," she added when she noticed Silver's eyebrows raising suggestively.

Silver gazed over at her with the dark, longing look in his eyes that made Lyra want to throw herself wholeheartedly into his arms and let him do whatever he wanted with her. He merely said, "Someday, it will be."

Lyra tried not to let herself look too enthusiastic with the thought.

Twenty minutes later, Lyra emerged from the shower dressed in one of Silver's old red and black jackets, which was still long enough to cover her from neck to mid-thigh. As Silver had suggested, she found a pair of black skinny jeans that she'd left from the last time she stayed with him. "Spooky," she muttered, noting her almost all-black ensemble as she tucked the necklace Silver had given her into the jacket. Did she look startling enough now to look like she physically belonged with Silver? People had often commented that she was "too cute" for someone who looked "so dangerous".

She entered the kitchen, where Silver stood gazing down at Absol with one of his affectionately grumpy looks on. He had two mugs of coffee in his hands. Absol, who had seemingly woken up after Lyra left to shower, sat near him, gazing at him with eyes filled with adoration.

Lyra cleared her throat to get Silver's attention. "Did I keep you away for so long that all you have is instant coffee to drink now?"

Silver turned to face her. His eyes studied her form slowly, lingering in places that made heat rush through her in both warning and longing. Then, his eyes turned to her face. "The milk is expired. The eggs are definitely rotten. I also have a stale loaf of bread," he informed her. "We can go get breakfast in town, but it'd be nice if not everything I owned was rotten or expired."

"Sol," Absol remarked in a sagely voice, making Lyra chuckle. She accepted her cup of coffee from Silver and leaned against the counter next to him. The coffee tasted remarkably rich and flavorful, particularly for an instant cup of coffee.

Gazing at Silver, something suddenly occurred to Lyra. She didn't even know any of Silver's theories about his mother. It was doubtful that any theory that he had was pleasant, but she was curious about where his mind was going with her story. "Silver…what do you know about your mother?" Lyra asked, drumming her fingers tiredly.

"Jack shit," he responded, chuckling wryly. "She's been gone since I was almost two. I think she's dead, but my father has never confirmed that."

"Well, we can get that confirmed today," Lyra suggested helpfully.

With his free hand, Silver flipped Lyra's wet hair. "Yeah, at your command. I think he's going to flip out when he realizes that the same girl that Celebi brought into the past and beat the shit out of him is the girl I'm now dating."

Lyra drew her mug to her lips, eyebrows slightly raised. She said, "His loss."

Silver was quiet for a while. When he spoke, his voice was grave like July thunderclouds, lacking its usual sardonic tones. "I mean…what mother leaves their son with a man like that?" Silver stated. When Lyra looked at him closely, he met her inquisitive gaze and said, "Even a terrible person wouldn't leave their child with an abusive, cold-hearted man like that. She has to be dead."

Lyra felt her heart seize at the certainty in his voice. _Dead. _That word was used so lightly sometimes. Ethan always used to say things like, "Whoops, forgot to call Mom! I'm so dead when I get home!" or "If I don't get that report to Professor Elm I'm definitely dead." But here, in Silver's voice, there was resignation. It wasn't a word that he threw around lightly, and it made her heart and stomach clench painfully.

Quietly, she said, "You need to know for sure."

"She can't be alive, Lyra. No mother would want to leave their son with Giovanni," he said stubbornly, but resolve faded from his voice. His posture sagged, and he propped up his arms behind him on the counter, as if he'd fall without it.

Lyra set down her coffee and nestled her head into the crook of his shoulder. "We'll figure it out," she said. "I promise. And whether it's good or bad, I'll be here, all right?"

Silver's arms encircled her, drawing her closer. "Thank you," he said quietly. Even after all of these years, it took a lot for Silver to thank someone. Lyra's heart swelled at the words, and she smiled into his shirt. "Quit smirking, you little shit," he muttered, naturally ruining the moment.

"Silver! I was smiling and you know it!"

"More like you were thinking 'Oh, good little Silver'."

"I think you need breakfast. Your sarcasm radar needs some fuel to recalibrate."

Silver sighed loudly. "Yeah, fine, I get it. Let's go grab some breakfast."

"After that, we need to fly to Cinnabar Island. That's where the ferry leaves from," Lyra said. The prison island had visiting hours every day, but the trouble was that, as essentially a rather large rock out in the middle of the sea, it was only accessible by a ferry that left from the dilapidated, volcano-ravaged Cinnabar Island. It was illegal to fly onto the prison island, and all Pokeballs were confiscated before even entering said prison. As a maximum security prison containing only the most dangerous and highly-profiled criminals, all precautions had to be taken. Lyra had been there twice in the past six years in order to question the former Team Rocket Executives about mass thefts from the Safari Zones as well as Pokémon that were still missing from their reign of criminality.

Out of the blue, she had a question. Turning to Silver with a questioning look, she asked, "How long has Giovanni been there?" she asked. "I was there two years ago tracking down some abducted Clefairy and Togepi as a favor and he definitely wasn't there last time."

"They found him holed up in the mountains north of Blackthorn City," Silver stated. "Three hikers that really weren't expecting to see a former nightmare of the Kanto and Johto."

"You speak so lovingly of him," Lyra said sarcastically, nudging his bicep as they left the kitchen to find their coats.

Silver gave a rueful laugh. He found his jacket, a heavy black winter jacket with a broad, fur-lined hood, and zipped it up. Lyra, noting with some irritation that her brown jacket didn't really go with her dark apparel, buttoned it over Silver's borrowed shirt anyway. Without another word, the two walked out into the snowy morning, with Absol tailing them enthusiastically.

* * *

Silver suddenly realized that whenever he went to a restaurant with Lyra, they always managed to attract the strangest waitress within the establishment.

On that snowy morning in Pewter City, the couple, along with Absol and Lyra's newest Eevee, the young and sassy byproduct of her Glaceon and Kuni's Vaporeon becoming particularly friendly one night at the Day Care, piled into a corner booth at the only restaurant within Pewter City. Like the rest of the city, it was a very old and run-down place, but at it was the only place within the city, it leapt with customers and energy even at this early time in the morning.

The two humans, said Eevee, and Absol were peacefully eating their food when a waitress with astonishingly curly black hair appeared, her eyes sparkling at the sight of the cute young Pokémon sharing a dish of Pecha berries. "Oh my goodness! They're so adorable!" she squealed, pointing at the two Pokémon with wide eyes. "Look at those faces! They're so soft and precious and I could just eat them!"

Eevee looked at her as though she'd lost her mind. Lyra, containing her emotions better than her Pokémon could, simply demurred, "Oh, no, they're actually very tough, you know."

Silver wanted to laugh at the double meaning in what she'd said. He merely reached over and pushed a fallen Pecha berry back onto their plate as the waitress exclaimed, "I don't believe that! Look at them!"

"The Eevee's mother has defeated the dragons that Lance trains and the Absol's mother has taken on two Legendary Pokémon and came very close to beating them both," Lyra said simply, rubbing at her neck. She didn't take to her Pokémon being called adorable when they'd been bred from the cream of the crop. Perhaps Lyra was the sweetest and most doting Trainer Silver had ever encountered, but he knew how hard she worked, especially with Eevee, to make them formidable fighters. Having a waitress squeal over them in a restaurant wasn't exactly what she'd aimed to do in her training efforts.

The waitress continued to coo at them until, thankfully, a man nearby requested a refill on coffee and she trotted back to the kitchen to retrieve the pot. Lyra glanced at Silver and released a sigh. "Maybe she's cute, but Eevee could mess a person up," she muttered, glowering at her pancakes as though deciding whether to torture a confession from them.

"Kind of like you?" Silver injected, earning a low growl from Lyra. She grinned, despite of her growling, and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.

Not long after this, in order to spare the dignities of Lyra and Eevee, the four left the restaurant. As soon as they were out of the line of sight of the restaurant windows, Lyra scooped up Eevee and hugged her. "But she isn't wrong, you know. You're absolutely adorable," she muttered to her, ruffling her fur affectionately.

"You're such a hypocrite," Silver muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I know. But I don't want anyone else telling my little warriors that they're adorable; it gives them ego complexes. You saw what happened to my Arcanine." Grabbing Eevee's Pokeball, she returned the Pokémon. "Should we fly now? Cinnabar Island is forty-five minute flight and the ferry leaves in an hour."

Silver recalled the situation at hand—the one that he realized now that he'd essentially coerced himself into by bringing up his strange interaction with the Unown—and found his fairly good mood sinking again. He released his Crobat, who immediately complained upon noticing the presence of the sun and the cold. "Yeah. Let's get going," he said.

Lyra released the accursed Skarmory as well, who gazed at Silver with a baleful yellow eye. Hopping onto her back, Lyra reminded him, "This is good. You're going to learn important things."

"If Giovanni feels cooperative," Silver muttered, swinging onto Crobat's back and returning Absol to his Pokeball in one smooth move.

The flight felt too slow and too peaceful. Silver wasn't the sort to panic—he didn't have that sort of personality—but the odd stirrings in his gut had to be panic. What else could they be? His heart raced unpleasantly and sweat beaded under his hair, even though the air at this altitude was frigid. Why was the idea of learning who his mother was so frightening?

Everything passed in a blur. Lyra was at home on Skarmory's back, and Silver felt as though he might jump out of his own skin every time Crobat as much as jittered in flight. The ocean beneath them looked gray and uninviting as a cup of tea that refused to steep. Lyra glanced over at him, noticing his expression. She shot him an encouraging smile. He attempted to return it and knew that he ended up grimacing.

Cinnabar Island was on the horizon. Where had the time gone? The flight had felt slow, so then why were they already there?

They landed near the dock, one of the only structures aside from the Pokémon Center that had been built on the rocky barrenness that had formerly comprised the island town. Lyra slid off of Skarmory, thanking her for her hard work before returning him, and suddenly Silver's world…tilted? His shoulder slammed hard into the ground. Crobat hissed in alarm. Lyra looked over to notice him on the ground, unmoving. "Silver!" she yelped, darting over. "What happened?"

"Don't feel good," he muttered, aware of his insolent, childish tones.

Lyra's mouth twisted in sympathy. She sat down beside him and murmured, "Lay here a minute if you need to, okay?"

Silver forced himself to breathe deeply. The stone wasn't comfortable, but it forced him to think about other things and collect himself. _Now isn't the time to panic, _he told himself. _You're going to learn about your mother…in theory. Yeah, it's Giovanni. And he's a dick. But Lyra is with me, and so that f***er can kiss my ass if he thinks he can simply scare me off when I ask questions this time. _With that thought lodged in his brain, he shifted to use Lyra's thighs as a pillow. "Feel free to be an ass to Giovanni, if you like," Silver told Lyra, gazing up into her hazel eyes.

She rolled her eyes and chuckled. "He isn't my dad. It isn't appropriate for me to be an ass to him."

"So…it's appropriate for you to mouth off to your own father?"

"He won't even let me meet my little half-brother Jamie, so…" she trailed off, gazing out at sea, and shrugged. "Point is, it's not my place to be harsh. I don't know him. I met him once, and at the time I was twelve and pretty much fed up with anyone who as much as mentioned the letter 'R' around me."

Silver gazed up at the sky, gray and stormy-looking out here in the middle of the sea. With a sudden bark of laughter, he looked back at Lyra, poking her arm. "He met you when you were time-travelling, and I was about ten years old. If he figures out that we're dating…he'll think I'm dating an older woman."

"Of all things to be concerned about," Lyra muttered to herself, but she laughed. Smoothing wild strands of Silver's hair, she watched the horizon. "I think I see a ship of some sort, but I don't know if it's the ferry or not."

"Then let's just wait."

"Well, I'm not going to just go out on Skarmory and flag the darned thing down," Lyra retorted. "That's tacky."

Silver sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Sometimes, Lyra was mature and a touch sarcastic, and at other times she sounded as naïve and misguided as she did when she was ten. "Yes, that's definitely our biggest concern, Lyra. Looking tacky. Arceus forbid."

The ship on the horizon grew progressively bigger. It definitely was a ferry, and only one ferry like that would be out near Cinnabar Island. Swallowing his rising trepidation, Silver sat up. "Well. Might as well head over to the dock, right? We didn't fly over here for nothing."

"Certainly," Lyra responded. As they stood, Lyra slipped her hand, so much smaller and colder, through his. "Stand tall the whole way there. Don't let anyone know you're being bothered; the only one who needs to know that this is difficult for you is me."

Silver nodded. There was comfort in her words; she had faith that he could stand strong near a man who'd caused so much turmoil in his life. He squeezed her hand. "I'll make sure no one sees me as weak," he said quietly.

They moved toward the dock together as the ferry began to dock. It honked loudly to call riders, but aside from Silver and Lyra, there was only a single, wiry woman with nut-brown skin and short salt-and-pepper hair sitting slumped on the dock. "What're a couple of kiddos doing going to a prison rock, huh?" the woman asked in a sharp voice as the two approached.

"Paying his father a visit. It is the day after Christmas, after all. It's time for family," Lyra said, her voice polite as always. "What are you doing here the day after Christmas?"

She gave a bark of laughter and adjusted the ratty gray scarf that hung around her neck. "Gloating. I got remarried on Christmas Eve, you see, and my ex-husband turned out to be a murderer and a small-time drug lord. He never treated me so great after our marriage, and then to find out that he'd gone and killed three different people to protect his drug ring broke it up. Fifteen years later I got me a good man, and I'm gonna show that son of a b**** my ring and gloat," she declared proudly.

Silver didn't quite know how to respond to that. Lyra, on the other hand, laughed a little, though her face was a little white. "I'm glad you found yourself a nice man," she said. "Can I see the ring?"

"Sure thing, sweetie." She held out her hand. "That's a three-and-a-half-carat blue diamond he bought me there."

"Wow," Lyra murmured, clearly impressed.

The ferry honked again. Silver tugged on Lyra's hand. "You two can talk about diamonds on the ship. They're impatient."

"Pssh. It's not like they have some giant crowd to heard on there," the woman snipped, and she marched past Lyra and Silver to walk up the gangplank and onto the ferry.

Lyra and Silver exchanged glances. "Who the hell goes to a prison to gloat?" Silver whispered furiously to Lyra.

She gave a smile that pulled one side of her face higher than the other. Taking a step forward, she responded, "Obviously, a woman who spent many years being treated badly by a law-breaking husband. Let's get moving. We can't dawdle any longer."

* * *

A visiting day.

How remarkable.

Giovanni glanced up from one of the cheap, tasteless novels he'd been reading to pass time in his cell to see a guard standing outside of his cell, baleful eyes cutting futilely at his shell. "Briccone, you have two visitors," he rumbled.

"How…unusual," Giovanni retorted. Sometimes, Ariana, who'd cleaned up her act and was currently opening a beauty salon in Olivine City with her fiancé, came to visit. Generally it was to chastise him for brainwashing her, but he wondered if she felt bad about escaping the fate of other Rocket higher-ups. Occasionally, she even brought him pie, even if three times out of five he wasn't even allowed to eat it.

The day after Christmas, though, didn't seem to be the sort of day that she'd come visiting on.

Glancing at his page number, he set the book down next to his cot in the cell. He might as well see who it was.

As per routine and safety standards, he was cuffed and rather brutally dragged through the hallways like a badly-behaved Houndoom. The prison was ghastly loud. Clearly the inmates were not separated by intellect or crime type, for the individuals in the cells nearest to him were brutal murderers, nightmarish rapists, and frenzied arsonists. They were loud and obnoxious, jeering at the former leader of Team Rocket.

"Hey! Shut up!" the guard barked.

One of the men, an arsonist by the name of Jensen, retorted, "Why should I, you son of a female Nidoking?"

The guard rolled his eyes. "Some of you are just brutal kindergarteners at heart," he grumbled.

"There certainly is a lot to be said for the lack of sophistication amongst some of the inmates," Giovanni responded coolly.

"You shut up, too!"

Finally, they arrived at the set of visitation rooms. Very few people visited the monsters housed within this prison, and the visitation rooms reflected that. There were only six of them, and at any given time only two or three would be filled with people visiting inmates within the prison. The guard shoved him toward number three. "An officer in there will handcuff you to the chair. Don't get up to any funny business, you ass."

Giovanni decided not to respond. This guard was having far too much fun with the "tough guy" act, but need he really ruin it so quickly the day after Christmas? He entered the visiting room, void of life except for a single brawny officer with an impressive handlebar moustache. This officer seized him just as roughly as the guard had and pushed him into the chair, securing his cuffs to a rung on the table. "Your two visitors will be in shortly. Sit tight until then," he said in a wry voice before heading out the door.

Sitting patiently, Giovanni tapped his feet, clad in detention-issue shoes, and exhaled a loud sigh. Several minutes passed before his boredom was relieved by the door swinging open. "Right in here, you two," the officer said sternly. "You get half an hour. After that, we retrieve both of you, no questions asked."

"We understand, sir. Thank you," said a young female voice. One of Giovanni's eyebrows arched. Who could possibly be visiting him like this?

Then, suddenly, it was his son and an oddly familiar girl walking through that door, which closed brusquely behind them.

Giovanni hardly recognized his son. His features, though still a little on the fine side, had certainly toughened and grown more masculine. One thing that hadn't changed, though, was the look of absolute disgust and defiance scrunching his now-tougher, more masculine features. "Giovanni," he grumbled in a startlingly deep voice.

"Son," he acknowledged coolly. "It has been quite some time since you've come to say hello to dear old dad." Giovanni gazed at the petite girl standing beside him. Something was very familiar about this girl, who looked a few years younger than her son, with her chestnut hair and brown eyes that he couldn't quite read. _Where do I know her from? _Giovanni thought.

"I have questions for you," Silver said coldly, yanking a chair out from the table and sitting in it tersely. "You'd better answer accurately." The girl with chestnut hair followed suit, perching with much more control in her seat. Her movements weren't graceful, but they demonstrated restraint that was painfully familiar and entirely elusive to the former leader of Team Rocket. Who was she? How did he know this girl?

Chortling in amusement upon remembering Silver's statement, Giovanni gazed at the ceiling. "What about? What could you possibly be so desperate to know that you come to me?"

"Who is my mother?" Silver demanded.

Giovanni knew his face didn't show it, but a sense of dread and old hurt filled him at the thought of the woman who bore him Silver. Of course, his son couldn't know that. Crossing his arms and cocking his head slightly, Giovanni retorted condescendingly, "Quite the big questions we're asking there, son."

"He has a right to know, Mr. Briccone," said the girl quietly. Those unreadable brown eyes suddenly seemed a harsh shade of amber as she stared at him. "He's eighteen, you know. Silver has gone eighteen years without knowing who his mother is or where she's gone to, and I think that's incredibly harsh of you."

With a harsh bark of laughter, Giovanni leaned as far back as he could into his chair, staring at the ceiling. "Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea how harsh I can be."

He heard softer laughter from the girl. In that same quiet voice, the one that seemed to suck every last scrap of attention to it, she said, "Contrarily, I know you're not the Trainer you used to be. It was my Xatu that singlehandedly defeated your Nidoqueen with Future Sight."

Giovanni froze.

This girl…was the one who defeated him as humiliatingly as Red had? It had to be. The voice, the eyes, the expression…it all made sense. He leaned forward and stared at her with hard eyes. Physically she looked about fifteen, fairly young and cute in comparison to his fierce-featured, but when she had defeated him, she hadn't looked much younger than that.

Regaining his voice and his composure, Giovanni griped, "Well. What a nightmare, seeing you here, then. How old are you?"

"Seventeen. I suppose you're quite perplexed at how I'm here, looking only two or three years older than when that battle happened seven years ago," she responded, sounding mildly smug.

He thought for a moment. They battled in Tohjo Falls, hadn't they? Yet…he remembered seeing that damned Pokémon Celebi, the time traveler. Back then he thought it had simply been a trick of the eye, but he supposed that he had certainly seen the Legendary if the girl had come back in time like that. "No matter," Giovanni said, crossing his legs in an air of boredom, though he felt incredibly frustrated by this girl's appearance coupled with his son's questions. "Why are you two here together? How do you even know one another?"

"She's my girlfriend," Silver responded defensively, "but that's not why I'm here. I need answers, _father._" The word dripped malice.

Giovanni sighed. "Why?"

Silver opened his mouth to snap something back at him, but his girlfriend waved her hand at him, silently telling him that it was a bad idea. She inhaled deeply before murmuring, "Your son thinks she's dead. He doesn't even know her name. I don't think that's fair to him."

"Might as well be dead," Giovanni grumbled before he could catch himself.

Stiff with surprise, Silver stared at his father and stuttered incoherently. _I don't suppose I can leave it like that, _he thought flatly, attempting to clap his palm to his forehead before being stopped short by his handcuffs. His reserve slowly falling back into place, Giovanni said, "Fine. I will tell you about her. It isn't as though I have anything better to do, anyway."

"Then get talking. We have twenty-two minutes," Silver ordered tersely.

Giovanni swallowed. This wasn't a topic he wanted to talk about. "Well, first thing you should know is that I ruined her life—"

"Big shock there," Silver interrupted.

"—and that it's the only thing I regret with my life," Giovanni stated simply. It was true. His experiments with Mewtwo, his poor treatment of Pokémon and his grunts, his abandonment of his own son—he'd never lost sleep over those. But not where Silver's mother was concerned. Thinking of her could keep him up for nights at a time.

Taking a deep breath and continuing, Giovanni said, "Her name…is Zora Salè. She's still alive. I did not murder her, if that's what you were thinking,"

"Salè?" Giovanni's attentions turned to Silver's girlfriend, who looked at him with a puzzled expression. "Isn't Salè a Dragon Clan surname?"

Giovanni nodded slowly. Then, he tiredly said, "Zora was a member of the Clan. It's where that red hair of yours comes from, Silver. Haven't you ever noticed all of those bastards have brightly-colored hair?" he added, his voice sharp with dark amusement.

Silver touched his own hair before making a face. "So I'm related to _Lance _on my mother's side of the family?" Then, with some horror, he mumbled, "Arceus, I'm related to Clair, too. That is disgusting."

Giovanni snickered. "My thoughts precisely."

"Don't laugh!" Silver snipped, pointing at his dad. "Keep talking."

"Well, I met Zora when I was twenty. Team Rocket was only about fourteen years old at that point. I've told you about how Lauro left because he thought Evelina was insane. I wasn't too thrilled with the process, but I thought that, as a student of science, I could eventually turn it around to something a little less…criminal, but equally as profitable. After all, Evelina had collected DNA from Mew at that point and I was curious about what I could do with it. I spent a lot of time travelling, and suddenly I came across Blackthorn City in the Johto. I'd heard of its legendary population of the Dragon Clan, and I was curious about the power. That's where I met Zora," Giovanni explained, and memories washed over him.

_"__We're here because of them. It's not the other way around." _

_Giovanni glanced up from the notes he'd been scribbling about the presence of Dratini and Dragonair within the town to see a redheaded girl standing over him to his left with a slight frown._

_He glanced at his notes. "What do you mean?"_

_She dropped to sit beside him. On closer inspection, Giovanni decided that this girl was maybe in her mid-to-late teens, with proud but beautiful features and the most intensely red eyes he'd ever seen. Without missing a beat, this pretty girl explained, "We came here many years ago to prove ourselves worthy to the dragons. They're not here because of us; we're here because they let us be."_

_He gazed at his girl, with her braided hair fluttering in the brisk spring breeze, and he gave a rare smile. "Then why are you called the Dragon Tamers of the Dragon Clan?"_

_"__We don't call ourselves that. Some pretentious outsider decided that we must've somehow 'tamed' the dragons if they let us be their allies and partners," she said reproachfully, tugging at her jacket sleeve. Then, suddenly, she extended her hand. "My name is Zora. What's yours?"_

_"__Giovanni," was all he answered, accepting her hand before pumping it in a handshake._

_"__That's a city boy name if I've ever heard one," she commented, snickering. "Come on. How about you learn some real things about this city?_

"From every day after that, when I was in that city for an entire month, she decided to come find me and correct every damned note I wrote. Then, suddenly, I came home for dinner with her family. Then I was staying in their house. And I figured out I was in love with a girl who, at the time, was only fifteen years old," Giovanni explained, sighing. "Evelina eventually called me home, but before I left, Zora told me to contact her and stay in touch. And that's what we did. We wrote letters and sent mail back and forth with our Pokémon. She was in love with me, and I certainly didn't mind her company," he explained. "She only got smarter and more beautiful every time I saw her, and I can't say that I was attached to her. I was…possessive, more like it, of everything about her. I didn't like hearing about other boys in her letters. I ended up wanting her only to myself. Every time that I came to visit, we were able to carry on where we left off last in our relationship, but I was still afraid she was running around with some roughneck behind my back."

"Surprise, surprise," Silver commented in a chilly voice. "Being a selfish, untrusting bastard. Such a shock."

Giovanni sighed. "Quit interrupting. You wanted to know this. I was so scared that, in my absence, Zora would meet another man and leave me. So the moment she turned eighteen, I proposed. She accepted, but told me I had to be approved by the elders first, or else she would have to leave the Clan permanently."

"Wait…" Silver trailed off. "Did she know about you? And your family?"

Shaking his head, Giovanni stared at his hands. Sometimes, he regretted not mentioning it. He regretted not giving Zora the option to run when she still had the time, but at the very core, he knew he wouldn't have done it any differently even if she lost her again. "The short answer is of course, no. You know me better than that. I didn't tell her. The elders thought I was a good man for her at the time, and they permitted her to marry me, the outsider, but I think that was mostly because I'd recently passed the Gym Leader test in Viridian City and they didn't mind marrying one of their girls off to a strong man. And so we got married. I was twenty-five by then, and she was twenty." Sitting back in his chair, he felt a genuine smile work its way onto his face. "You have no idea how beautiful your mother was at her wedding. Everyone spoke of how Clair's mother was so incredibly beautiful, and about how she, too, has the sort of beauty that can tear a man in two. But they didn't compare to your mother that day. Evelina didn't come, of course."

"That's kind of rude," interjected Silver's girlfriend. "Crappy parenting."

"I guess it's inherited in this damned family," Silver commented, glancing sidelong at her.

Giovanni groaned. "Quit interrupting! Do you want to know what happened?"

"Let me guess…she figured out that you were supposed to inherit the leadership of Team Rocket?" Silver asked, drumming his fingers impatiently.

"Actually…I inherited the position, about a year after you were born, Silver, and suddenly I couldn't hide it anymore. I was loaded with tension and anxiety after Evelina's death, and one night I just snapped and told Zora everything. Threw all of my lies in her face. Zora was a strong but incredibly trusting and naïve woman who hated nothing more than lies and pretenses. It broke her to learn that I'd been lying to her since she was fifteen. She ran back to Blackthorn City and told her parents, who then told the Elders. They disowned her because they thought she was completely aware that I was set to inherit the position and wanted to get in on the money." Giovanni paused, gauging the disbelief and rage in his son's features. "She couldn't face me, and she had been all but banished from Blackthorn City. She sent a final letter to me with her sole Pokémon, a Dragonite, and told me not to ruin your life like I'd ruined hers. I haven't heard from her or seen her since. She went somewhere far from here—but as far as I know from research, she isn't dead, but I have no clue where she is. I wrapped myself up in Team Rocket to stop thinking about her and my mistakes all the time. I forgot about the science along the way, the thing I'd been so interested in, and it became a mad scramble for power and money," he finished quietly. His throat felt tight. It shouldn't have felt tight. He was a strong human being—a man who had lost everything, yes, but a strong man who had lost everything.

Silver glared at him for a full minute before speaking in a low, seething voice. "You couldn't even honor her one request that you not f*** up my life," he growled. Standing up so quickly that he overturned the chair, he planted his hands on the table as if to brace himself and roared, "I can't believe you! How many people have you just torn apart because you're a selfish piece of shit?!"

Giovanni let Silver berate him harshly, using language that he would've never dared use against Evelina when she was still alive. He supposed that he deserved it. But he just didn't care to hear it. Once his son lost steam and dropped back into his seat, Giovanni said, "I sense that time is running short. If you have more questions, Zora's mother, Tabitha Salè, still lives in Blackthorn City, in one of the houses near the ravine. I suppose the nice thing to say is humor her. Zora was disowned, she outlived her two of her five children, and her husband just died this past year. Chances are she'll be a little…high-strung."

The door flipped open. In his intimidating voice, the officer boomed, "Time's up. Time to go, kiddos."

Silver, with his chest still heaving, allowed himself to be tugged gently away by his girlfriend. As soon as he exited the room, she turned to Giovanni. "Have a good day," she said in a politely chilly sort of voice. The officer cleared his throat, signifying that she needed to leave. She strode out the door, and the officer slammed it shut. Giovanni was left alone in the quiet, the ever-mocking quiet that allowed thoughts about Zora to spiral madly out of control through his mind.

_My son is correct. I'm a terrible person. Perhaps if I simply left while I could like Lauro did…I could've done something better. But oh well, _he decided, leaning back in his chair. The air seemed dense and chilly in this lonely room. _I am almost fifty years old. What I've done cannot be undone anymore. Hopefully Silver won't ruin things with that girl like I did with Zora._

The guard came to collect him, and as always, he was mocking. For once, Giovanni couldn't help but agree with the slew of derogatory words.

* * *

For once, Lyra didn't have the words or the know-how to deal with Silver as he gazed at the ashen ocean from the railing of the ferry. Never had his eyes seemed so miserable and distant. He'd been unresponsive to kisses, corny puns that normally made him poke her in the belly and whisper "shut up", and to the multitude of both related and unrelated questions she asked.

_What else is there to do? _Lyra thought in concern, flipping up her collar to protect herself from the biting wind.

So there she stood with him, watching the waves as well. Crest. Valley. Indistinct swell. It repeated in an endless pattern, save for Magikarp leaping from the sea here and there. The lady from earlier with salt-and-pepper hair chatted loudly with someone in the background via Pokegear. Everything seemed normal in comparison to the dark, dreary cloud that currently represented Silver.

She must have stood there wordlessly beside him for a good ten minutes before he suddenly turned to her, entrapping her in a tight hug. Lyra squeaked at the strength of his embrace. "I swear on my life I will never do the things to you that Giovanni did to my mom. I promise," he said, his voice rough, his breath ruffling her hair. "I won't be that kind of man to you."

Lyra stood, stunned and blushing slightly at the vehemence in his words. "I never have thought once that you were going to be. And I really take back what I said that night in Lavender Town when I was thirteen. Even at your worst you were never that horrible," she said into his shoulder.

"I can't believe the shit that man said. Why would he lead someone on like that for years, letting them think they had some normal job as a Gym Leader?" he growled, and she could feel tears of frustration seeping into his voice. His arms tightened around her as he added, "It makes me feel sick."

She couldn't leave him alone in this state tonight. Gazing up at Silver, who was making a valiant effort to restrain his frustration, Lyra said, "Let me come home with you again tonight. I'll make you soup, if you're up for it."

"If you want to," Silver muttered. He released her and started gazing out at the sea once again, his eyes distant.

She nodded, giving him her best smile. "Of course I want to." Hooking her arm through his, she rested her head against his shoulder. "I love you. I want to do nice things for you."

He glanced at her, looking mildly irritated. He brushed his lips against her temple. "Don't treat me like a weakling. I'm just thinking."

"Never said you were weak, you bum," Lyra retorted. "And it's fine if you're thinking. You have a lot to think about."

"Another hour on this ferry. I think I'll have ample time," Silver retorted sardonically. He flipped the end of her hair and quietly said, "Love you too, by the way."

"What's that? I didn't hear you," Lyra said, smirking a little.

Chuckling darkly, he wrapped an arm around her waist and whispered into her ear, "I love you…you shit."

Lyra burst into laughter. _It worked! He's joking! Yes! _She turned and surprised him with a kiss, to which he responded to far more gently than he normally would have. Her lips lingered, and she intertwined her fingers through his hair to hold him close. "Now…how 'bout that soup tonight?"

"Better be damned good," he said, smirking.

"Of course it will." Lyra kissed him again and then backed away. "We can sort through all of this information once we get some good food in you and figure out what to do from there, okay?"

He nodded, rubbing at his jaw. "Might as well eat before going to Hell mentally."

"That's the spirit."

Once again watching the waves, the two stood closely. Lulled by the motion of the waves, Lyra leaned against Silver. _His mother was Dragon Clan member, _she thought wearily. She could believe it, too, what with the amount of passion and ambition he possessed. _And with that red Gyarados I traded him, he could easily pass as one. I have no idea how I never saw this before, _she suddenly thought, her face scrunched.

Gazing at the waves, she gave a small sigh. _I guess that sometimes things are so obvious that you miss that they're even there entirely._

The ferry cut through the waves, leaving behind nothing but ripples in its wake and a sense of trepidation in the air.

* * *

_A/N: Hello and welcome to, "Jesus Christ, I didn't think I could get any more stressed out but then I did. So I guess I'm wrong." Ugh, what a long week. I could probably live another lifetime without having to sing "Joy to the World" again-for those of you who live in a non-Christian country or live under a rock in the United States, that is a Christmas song that is very lovely but I've sang it like fifteen times this week. Now, as far as my writing is going, I've made little progress on my other fic, Sonata in Gray. I feel very useless as a writer at the moment. Like I cranked out over 120,000 words this summer and suddenly I've only typed half a sentence in Sonata in Gray in the past week and a half. _

_So...I have a feeling that there are gonna be people who take issue with the identity of Silver's mother. An OC? Yep. A relative of Lance? Yep. I know a lot of people say that Ariana looks like Silver and therefore is his mother. If we applied the logic that anyone who looks vaguely like Silver could be his mother, then Commander Mars and Roarke could be his mother, too. But I personally think Ariana and the others are much too young to be the mother of a boy who hit his eighteenth birthday, and plus the revulsion Silver experiences when realizing he's related to those "freaks in capes". *evil laughter rings faintly over valley and dell* But hey, his mother isn't dead?! Because unnecessary character deaths are TOTALLY unnecessary!_

_Yep, Giovanni is in prison. As he should be, right? And has anyone caught it yet that I'm comparing Silver's family to some Italian mob family? Because, you know, Team Rocket is essentially the mob of the Pokemon World. And by the way, his last name in this story, Briccone, means something along the lines of "ruffian" or "thief" in Italian, according to my friend who speaks the language. I literally just asked one day, "Hey, what's a mob-sounding name to you?" and that's what the twit answered with that.  
_

_Well, anyway, leave a review! A favorite! A follow! Whatever fills your lovely heart's desires! And have a lovely week, you guys. _


	3. A Stumble

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon, but if I did, I would've made a law that I, Mars, the writer known as halfcurehalfdisease, would never be able to own Pokemon X or Y because I can't get jack shit done while owning a copy of it. ;A;

* * *

"Oh bloody stinking Arceus," cursed Lyra.

Silver glanced up from the groceries he was currently shoving into his refrigerator to notice Lyra clutching at her hand. Blood seeped between her fingers as she shuffled over to the sink. "Your dumb knives are so much sharper than the ones at home. Grab me a band-aid, if you don't mind," she grumbled. Knocking the handle with the back of her hand, she ran her bloody hand under the water.

Silver grabbed the expired milk carton and tossed it in the garbage before finding a bandage for Lyra. "Isn't that the third time you've cut yourself cooking over here?"

"Out of the five times I've cooked here, this is the third I've diced myself," she retorted, scowling. "Got myself good this time. I pretty much, uh, bisected my palm."

"Seriously?" Silver strode over and grabbed her hand, flipping it up. A frighteningly neat line of red crossed from her thumb to just under her pinkie. "How did you even manage that? And that's going to need something more than a little band-aid, idiot."

Lyra laughed sheepishly as Silver sought out gauze. "I have no idea. I think the last time I had a cut this painful was when Mellow accidentally got me with her blade in Hoenn."

Silver found gauze in the drawer and approached Lyra. Swiping paper towels from the counter nearby, he took her wrist and mopped up the blood that still gushed from her hand. _Is this something I'll always be doing with her? _Silver thought with some exasperation. He didn't like seeing her bleed. It reminded him too much of how, months before, he'd almost lost her permanently to an untimely and painful death. Applying pressure to the cut, he glowered at Lyra. "Quit being stupid with my knives."

"You sounded tough until it got all domestic at the end," Lyra commented, giggling.

He scowled at the ceiling. "You're…I can't believe I'm using this word…but, yeah. You're incorrigible."

Lyra laughed before wincing. Silver had increased the pressure to slow the bleeding faster. She grumbled, "That's a little much pressure there, Silver."

"Well that's a big damned cut and it's bleeding heavily. If it were deeper I'd drag you into urgent care for stitches."

"I'm touched. Such sweet words."

Silver ignored her comment and pulled the blood-soaked towels away. The bleeding had slowed enough already that he decided it was best to wrap her hand and take away the knives for the night to prevent another cut. He unwrapped the gauze and began his work. Lyra watched, her eyes distant. "When I was younger, Ethan and I were out on the beach, digging holes, and I fell in broken glass. I tore up most of my forearm. I was kind of in shock because of the blood, but at least I didn't pass out like Ethan did."

"He's been a useless little girl since birth, I take it," Silver muttered to himself as he looped the gauze around Lyra's hand again.

She shrugged with one shoulder, brushing her hair out of her face with her free hand. "He never did do the whole 'violent' thing very well. It's why he's just Elm's assistant and not some battler, like we are."

Finishing his bandaging job, Silver stepped back. "But unlike you, I think he'd probably be able to use these knives and not nearly amputate his own hand. I'm chopping the damned onions now. I don't trust you with this thing tonight," he growled. Upon returning from their visit with Giovanni, Lyra had dragged him out in an onslaught of sleet to buy groceries. Not only were they still wearing soaked clothing, but some groceries—like the bag of flour—had been ruined when Silver tripped over a Geodude sleeping under the snow and dropped the bag into a soupy puddle of slush.

As he began chopping onions, he glanced over at Lyra, who took over his position putting away some of the groceries, he raised his eyebrows. "Wait a second. You didn't bring any extra clothes with you."

Lyra glanced down at her soaked sweatshirt and cursed. "I forgot about that!" she exclaimed, clapping a hand to her forehead. "I mean, I could throw on my clothes from yesterday and dry these off over the heater."

Silver continued chopping onions, feeling his eyes tear up from the fumes, and then he sighed. He said, "Those aren't dry, either. I threw in a load of laundry this morning…which includes those sweater-print-legging-whatever-the-f*** you call them. And I would've thrown them in the dryer if you didn't make us go buy groceries in the middle of a sleet storm."

"Those are my festive leggings, you uncultured Swinub." Lyra groaned. "Damn it. Well…I'll figure something out. Chop those onions and I'll see what I can do about clothes for us." She set a jar of crushed garlic and a bundle of leeks on the counter before sweeping out of the room, her jeans squelching with each movement.

Silver was alone. His mind began to wonder, and every time it did, he poked his hand ever so slightly with the knife—not like Lyra had. He wasn't stupid enough to tear his own hand open with a kitchen utensil. Yet, before he could stop himself, all he could think was, _Zora. My mother's name is Zora Salè, and she is alive._

He scraped onions viciously into a bowl for Lyra to dump into whatever surprisingly delicious soup concoction she decided to make. Silver grabbed the leeks and began cutting those. _But…she left me with my father. Why? I know she was humiliated, but was I just a living reminder of how she was a complete and utter fool to marry that dumbass? _With that dark thought flooding his head, he began to chop the leeks roughly. _I almost don't want to know why, but I have the feeling Lyra will convince me otherwise. The little shit is incredibly persuasive and all._

A pair of jeans and a black thermal shirt flew into the kitchen. "Change into those!" Lyra called from the hallway. "I'm going to use your room to change."

"Have fun," Silver commented sarcastically as the sound of his door closing cut off conversation. He quickly slid out of his wet clothes and tugged the clean clothes on. The effect was immediate; now the room seemed a good fifteen degrees warmer. Not only that, but it felt as though Lyra had let them sit on the heater for a minute before giving them to him. He couldn't help but give a faint smile at the thought; there were some things he'd never be able to tell Lyra, and one of those things was that she was probably the kindest human being he'd ever met, an angel somehow trapped on Earth.

The door to his room creaked open and he heard Lyra's footsteps leading to the kitchen tentatively. "Silver? Umm…don't judge me on what I'm wearing, all right?" she murmured meekly as she entered the kitchen.

He glanced over his shoulder…and then did a double-take. It seemed as though she was only wearing one of his jackets, similar to the one she'd borrowed today, and it covered her to mid-thigh. "Wow," was all he could comment, trying to once again repress the surge of heat that rushed through his blood and into the wrong places.

"Well, all of your pants are literally too big for me. Like even your sweatpants. I couldn't get the drawstrings tight enough to fit…so…"

Silver held out his hands. "Hey, jeez, okay. I understand." _But dear Arceus I don't know I can make my f***ing anatomy understand that this is her only option right now._

They resumed cooking. Silver chopped leeks, and Lyra began boiling water, along with a few other nefarious ingredients, on the stove. Occasionally he glanced at her legs—damn her and her nice legs—and at least her legs distracted him from the heavy conversation that would take place while the soup, well, stewed. "My soup takes at least forty-five minutes to stew!" Lyra had always said, generally while pointing a large spoon at him.

"Leeks," he said, shoving the bowl that was now filled with the finely-chopped pieces of vegetable at her.

"Perfect." She took those, along with the onions, and tossed them in. Setting an unopened box of noodles on the countertop beside the stove, she raised her eyebrows. "And now, if you'd like, you can just…talk to me. About today and your thoughts. I know it's bothering you."

Just like that, a floodgate burst in Silver's mind. Every thought—happy, ugly, and bittersweet—enraptured his entire being, making him feel as though he'd shake with the knowledge he'd found today. Padding over to the tiny kitchen table, Silver dropped into a chair. "There's a lot that I'm thinking about that, and I doubt any of it is what you want to hear," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…you and your mom get along perfectly. You're a team. You're a loving family. Even if your dad ran off, you've always had each other. On the other hand, I don't really have that. I hate one parent and have no idea what to even think about the other, now that I know she's alive and left me with my father," Silver muttered, tracing the grain on the table.

Lyra joined him, sitting primly in the chair across from him. "But it isn't about what I want to hear. I'd understand if you're angry at her, and I'd understand if you want nothing more than to go find her and be all buddy-buddy with her," she said softly. "Just talk to me."

"Okay…fine. Well…I guess by seeing you and your mom, and also that asshat Ethan and his mother, I've always assumed moms were just…good. Always good. Moms just couldn't be bad people." He scratched his neck. "But mine left me with Giovanni. She made a flimsy effort for him to treat me better than he ever treated her. That's all."

Pressing his palms to the table, he noticed Lyra's eyes on him, reading his emotions. He scowled and continued, "Zora…wherever she is…I'm so angry at her for leaving me with him…but at the same time, I'm happy she's alive and Giovanni didn't kill her."

"I understand," Lyra murmured.

"And I just want to tell her that I'm still here, and it's not by any of Giovanni's weak-ass efforts to raise me," he growled. "And that he never honored her wish, and that it was stupid as hell that she even asked him to do that when he's not the sort of man that'd do that."

They sat in silence for a while. Silver glanced at Lyra. "You're judging me, aren't you."

"Of course I'm not. How can I judge when I've never felt the things you feel right now?" she asked, reaching across the table to rest her hand over one of his clenched fists.

He shrugged, though his shoulders felt as tense as coiled wire. With heaviness in his tone, Silver stated, "I spent years training in the Dragon's Den. I was stupid as hell, not noticing that the people there look really similar to me. No one said anything to me. Not once. They never said, 'You look like Zora'."

"When someone is removed from the Dragon Clan, they're not allowed to be talked about," Lyra informed him. "There was some rematch between Clair and Pryce a few years ago that I had to facilitate. Clair won that one, somehow. But after Pryce stormed off, she started talking at me about some pretty strange things, and she told me about a man who'd committed murder in Blackthorn City and subsequently was never spoken of again. Because he was disowned, you know."

_They're proud people. Don't really like to be reminded of their mistakes. If they made the connection, they probably wanted to pretend that they never had, _he decided. Loosening his fist and linking his fingers through Lyra's, he stared at the wall opposing him. Someday he'd really have to tear off that ugly, olive-striped wallpaper. It made him nauseous if he had to look at it for too long. "So even if they saw the connection, they think they can't mention it."

"It's not a written rule, per se, it just, uh, happens, I guess?" Lyra commented, rubbing her thumb against his palm soothingly.

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. His hand dropped away from Lyra's. "So I suppose talking to my grandmother is going to be a bitch, isn't it?"

Lyra laughed mirthlessly. "That's what I was just thinking. Even if you go, 'Sup, Gram-Gram, the name's Silver, and I'm your grandbaby!'"

Silver slowly turned to stare at Lyra's strange comment. She shot him the full wattage of her grin and promptly tipped her chair back, tracing the patterns in the drywall on his ceiling. "I do _not _talk like that," Silver grumbled, a note of uncertainty in his voice.

Crossing her arms, she settled the chair back on all four legs and retorted, "I know that! I was just making a point. You're not some Unovan gangsta rapper."

"Disgusting."

"Just because you don't like rap doesn't mean it's disgusting to everyone else," she muttered. Glancing around conspiratorially, she added, "but, yeah, I think it's disgusting, too."

Silver sighed loudly, but a faint smile had worked its way onto his features. "You're so weird."

"I know."

Sobering up, he stood up and pushed his chair in. "We have to talk to Tabitha Salè," he said, his voice serious. "If anything, she should at least know that her ex son-in-law didn't murder her grandson."

"Should we just wing it tomorrow?"

"Might as well. Sitting around and waiting for it seems like a waste of time."

Lyra stood up to check on the soup. Once again, Silver's eyes were drawn to her bare legs. He hadn't seen them since the weather had gotten cold, and he'd lost all immunity to her uncovered body once again. Desire coiled low and thick in his body, welding him to the spot he stood, but he did his best to ignore it. "So, what are we going to do with the rest of the night, then?" he asked, and he caught the uneven quality of his voice. Hopefully Lyra was too busy poking at leeks to notice.

"It's Unovan football season. You could turn on a game of that or something. Watch them score a goal or whatever," she suggested, poking around in the soup with a spoon.

_Johtonese people don't know jack shit about sports, _Silver thought to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. The old, traditional society that lingered in the nooks and crannies of the region repelled sports that were starting to take over every other region. "It's a touchdown. Not a goal."

She chuckled and scratched her head. "Whoops. My bad." Turning around and wiping the lingering soup ingredients off of the wooden spoon with a rag, she watched him with eyes that looked like the sweetest molten chocolate in the wan light. Silver had to pinch himself to keep the desire out of his features.

Lyra scrubbed at a salty leek stuck to the spoon. "You don't seem particularly enthused with my idea. Did you…have something else in mind?"

"A lot of things." _And chances are you'd be disappointed that I'm thinking about any of them._

Suddenly, Lyra's Pokegear rang from the pocket of the borrowed jacket. In her haste to grab it, she tossed the spoon on the counter and dropped the rag on the floor. "Hello?" she answered. "Oh, Ethan! Merry late Christmas to you, too!"

Silver stood as patiently as he could manage as Lyra conducted her usual conversation with her childhood friend ("No, I haven't seen Marill lately…well, no I can't help you look. I'm at Silver's! In another region entirely! I can't go ask the Professor if he's sleeping in the lab! Besides, you're practically neighbors…no. Absolutely no guilting me into doing this! A seventeen year old boy cannot guilt his childhood friend into doing something for him by crying like a little girl!") before hanging up.

She shoved her Pokegear back into her pocket and sighed. "He is absolutely, utterly, completely hopeless. I can't blame Kris for not wanting to be with him in a serious relationship sometimes." Gazing at Silver, she added, "Now, you had a bit of time to think. Do you have any ideas?"

"You're the guest."

Lyra groaned. Starting toward Silver, she grumbled, "Are you serious? Do not pull that excuse on—" Her ranting was promptly cut off as she pitched forward, having slipped on the rag she dropped in order to answer Ethan's phone call, and started falling forward.

Silver took a few quick steps forward and grabbed Lyra before she could break her nose on the tile. Upon catching her, he realized that she'd borrowed a fairly thin jacket of his. He could feel the curves, heat, and crevices of her body, and the desire he'd manage to mute into a tiny flame suddenly flared. "Ugh, I can't believe I almost did that," Lyra grumbled, apparently unable to notice that all Silver wanted to do was scoop her up, throw her on his bed, and crawl over her and taste her lips, her skin, her everything…

His arms still linked her to him, and he couldn't let go. "Silver, I'm all right," she said, squirming a little. "You can let go now."

Hands gliding up to her neck, he gently tilted her head back and kissed her with everything that he had. She gasped at the fierce contact, unaccustomed to such a lack of restraint with an initiated kiss; however, it didn't take long for her to simply melt into him, her hands pressed into his chest as she met his rhythm. His hands skimmed down her front, over her breasts and the soft bump of her belly. Lyra sighed at the contact, and her knees shook. "Oh, my," she breathed, falling into Silver.

He scooped her up easily. While standing, she'd become nothing but jelly. Obviously, he'd have to spend their time together holding her up so she wouldn't fall over. On the other hand…if they were lying down or sitting…

Stumping into the living room, he deposited her on the couch and crawled over her. He picked up where they'd left off, wrapping himself around her, pushing his wants and needs into her, and she accepted them. He laced his fingers through hers and coaxed her arms over her head and deepened the kiss. Her breathless but enthusiastic response kept him going. As he settled more comfortably, Lyra wrapped her arms around his neck, groaning at the contact.

But then just as quickly as it started, Lyra broke it off, her breath rasping loudly. Her cheeks flamed as Silver waited for some explanation for why she suddenly stopped. When she didn't give one, he sat up so that he was only straddling her hips. "What's wrong?" he asked, and he felt only a little ashamed at how harsh it sounded.

She exhaled; the sound shook and rattled in her keyed-up state. "If…we keep going…I don't know if I'm going to be able to stop," she said shamefacedly, rolling onto her side and pressing her hands to her mouth.

Silver's blood seemed to boil at her admission. _I can drive her absolutely mad if I wanted to, _he thought with triumph. Not that he would…all the time. Rocking back, he shifted so that Lyra could sit up and get her breath back. Silver's craving for her body returned; when he had been laying on top of her, it had crushed the fabric to her figure. Every last curve was as visible as it had just felt.

She suddenly gave a quiet little laugh. "Oh, Silver. I see it in your eyes, you know. You want to take it further. I do, too," Lyra said, shoving her hair out of her face. It immediately fell back in her eyes, but she didn't seem to care about that as she added, "I just want to know for sure that, when we do it, we're safe about it. I know for a fact we aren't right now."

Shame threatened to crush Silver at the realization. She was right. Completely right. He didn't have protection sitting around the house, and Lyra, coming from a somewhat socially-conservative, half-Johtonese family, certainly didn't have birth control. "I…got carried away," Silver admitted, resisting the urge to slap himself.

Lyra snorted. She retorted, "Well, excuse me,_ I_ was the one who was physically carried away."

"You think you're so damned clever," Silver muttered, and he settled into the corner of the couch. His heart rate didn't quite understand that there wouldn't be anything else occurring of _that _nature this evening. He turned on the TV with the nearby remote. "Let's see if the Castelia City Stoutland can score that goal in football," he teased with a smirk.

Lyra groaned and scooted closer to Silver to whack his arm. "Okay, I get it. I'm an idiot when it comes to sports."

"Yeah, you are," he said, tugging her closer so that she sat with her back against his chest. "Are you sure this isn't going to bore the crap out of you?"

Shaking her head, Lyra settled back against him and tugged his arms across her front, securing herself to him. "Nah, I got the best seat in the house," she said.

Silver rested his chin on her head, and for a while they were silent, watching the figures on screen tackle each other. It was interrupted only by Lyra fetching the soup and Though his hands itched to roam, Silver kept them resting on Lyra's stomach. By half-time, however, Lyra had cuddled fiercely into him. "I'm so tired," she mumbled.

"You're expecting me to be your mattress?" he asked.

She didn't respond immediately, and Silver poked her shoulder. "Well?"

"Yeah," she responded. "Be my bed tonight." Her form went lax against him as she relaxed. Silver couldn't help but smile a little. He stretched to grab a blanket that sat on the floor nearby, and he dumped it on Lyra.

Things were quiet, and Silver gazed at the ceiling. For a moment, he wondered why he felt incomplete when he had Lyra in his arms and what appeared to be a promise of continued affection from her. _Do I really need to hunt down Zora Salè to feel better than this? _Silver wondered, leaning down to brush a kiss over Lyra's hair. _Is it really necessary?_

The questions plagued him as the football game dragged on deep into the night. If anything was for certain, it was that his thoughts would never let him rest.

* * *

_A/N: Hello, and welcome to "What the ever-loving f*** I think I died or something in December because I honestly can't write very well right now". Plus, I apologize for the short update. I felt like writing a lemon (actually I wrote part of a lemon), but then didn't have the balls to go through with it, so there ya go. A little fluffy teaser bit there, I guess? __Will I ever write a lemon? We will just wait to see if I can put on my big girl pants and do one. Anyway, yeah, not a whole lot of plot this chapter. *shrugs* Plus it's really short by this story's standards. Yuck.  
_

_I'm so sorry about the lack of update for nearly a month. In week I'm soloing in Mozart's Missa Brevis, and in under two weeks I'm performing in an honors band, so practicing kind of took up my free time. Nothing makes me angrier or more embarrassed than looking like a fool while performing._

_Music aside, I also obtained Pokemon X! I beat the game in like four days (I refuse to apologize; however, I probably will have to apologize to my quartet that I'm soloing with in the Missa Brevis). So I've been breeding Noibat from my awesome Noivern, Nox, to send out via Wonder Trade, and I also have been trading out Haunter, Machoke, and Graveller to people. In return...I get Caterpie. Pero no puedo quejar. I'm just glad I'm trading some evolving Pokemon and Noibat out.  
_

_Please leave a review! I'm grateful for the few of you who have so far. ((Now I should get to work on updating Sonata in Gray))  
_


	4. Hiatus

Hey there. This isn't exactly an update, as you can tell. This is an announcement that The Snow Too Peaceful is going on hiatus for a while. As a side project to my fic Sonata in Gray, I'd rather take some time off with this one over SiG, where I feel like I've finally gotten my momentum back. I just finished a semester and got through finals (some of them didn't go very well), and I now have to take college-level physics, economics, and a really nasty math class on top of preparing for auditions to get into high-level groups and to obtain scholarships. I'm also dealing with seasonal affective issues (January where I live is the absolute worst if you get depressed by the dark and the cold), anxiety, and a lot of stress and conflict in my personal life, including relationship troubles and familial issues. Please don't hate me. Once my mood picks up and I've sorted a lot of this out, I'll update again. I won't promise in case something unusual happens, but you have my word that I will try really damned hard to get another chapter out to you all once I fight through the bullshit in my life.

Thank you, darlings. I hope you can understand.

~Mars


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